On stage at the Web 2.0 Summit Thursday, Zuckerberg said Microsoft invested for reasons beyond a financial return; for example, to be able to collaborate on various products. Taking their money, he said, made sense, but that it doesn’t mean it plays into Facebook’s strategy.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg speaks at F8, Facebook's second annual developers' conference in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Photo by Kim Komenich / San Francisco Chronicle

Living up to a $15 billion valuation has got to be tough for a company only 4 years old.

That's the stress that Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, must live with, though he denies that he's under much pressure.

Last year, Microsoft made a $240 million investment in the Palo Alto social networking site for a 1.6 percent stake in the company. The deal pegged Facebook's overall value at $15 billion, an astonishing amount for such a young organization with limited revenue.

Fast forward to today: Facebook is increasingly popular, but the online advertising market is slumping amid a tough economy. Meanwhile, shares of many of Facebook's publicly traded contemporaries have tanked.

Ergo, Facebook is probably worth less than it was when Microsoft made the investment.

On stage at the Web 2.0 Summit Thursday, Zuckerberg said Microsoft invested for reasons beyond a financial return; for example, to be able to collaborate on various products. Taking their money, he said, made sense, but that it doesn't mean it plays into Facebook's strategy.

"On a day-to-day basis, there really is no thought about, 'We need to do this to justify the $15 billion valuation,' " he said.

Few technology companies are as hot as Twitter, an Internet service that devotees use to inform the world about everything in their lives, no matter how mundane.

Twitter doesn't make money

But despite its popularity with the digerati, the San Francisco company hasn't dealt with one important detail - making money. And, well, its executives are still working on it.

Asked about the lack of revenue Thursday, Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams paused and shrugged before saying, "I don't think it's as big of a dilemma as people think it will be for us." In any case, he said, he hasn't focused on it.

Given the harsh economic realities these days, many Internet companies without a business plan are focusing big-time on finally making money.

Williams gave some general ideas about his plans. They don't include bombarding users with ads in their tweets, as the micro-blogging messages on Twitter are known.

Instead, Williams mentioned companies using the service to get the word out about their products to users who opt in to those messages. For example, some people would want to know when a computer that is hard to find is finally available, he said.

"There is commercial value, not just personal value," Williams said.

A bright idea for energy use

WattZon, a Web site introduced last month and showcased at Thursday's Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, allows users to calculate their total energy footprint by measuring their direct consumption (car travel and flights), the energy that goes into the products they use plus the energy the government expends on their behalf.

Users fill in fields or move dials to account for the various ways they use energy. They can also add products that are beyond the basics, like surfboards shipped from Australia, so they can be counted in the total.

It turned out that I'll use 6,348 watts, at my current rate. That's the equivalent of: